Why now?
by ImNotStubborn
Summary: Tag for 706. A little angst, but all's well that ends well. Rated M because of adult content, but it's nothing graphic really, I'm just being safe.


_Set after the ending scene of 706, Green Light_

_Could be a sequel to Thoughts, but since I only realized that after writing it, it stands on its own._

**Why now?**

Patrick Jane was laying under the sheets in his Airstream bed, exhausted but satiated. He'd finally been able to catch his breath again after he and Teresa had moved his birthday celebration inside the trailor in order not to break any modesty-related laws. And boy, had they celebrated.

The object of his desire came back naked from the bathroom where she'd had to fight for a good ten minutes against the scrunchie holding her post-adult activities matted ponytail. Patrick rose his head, beaming at her. She blushed and instantly felt annoyed: she was a 40-something confident FBI Agent, was it too much to ask from her blood flow _not _to behave as if she was still a schoolgirl?  
But those negative thoughts faded away when her boyfriend sat against the headboard and she could enjoy the great view of his beautiful, toned and tanned chest.

She smiled back at his happy face and playfully threw herself at him, landing on his knees, straddling them. His mood matching hers, he had skillfully caught her in his arms and was now kissing her senseless, the feel of her smooth, delicious skin against his making his groin twitch a little. She grinned as she felt it between her legs, and he broke their tight embrace, leaving his nose against her to nuzzle it tenderly as he spoke.

"If someone had told me last year _this_ is how I'd spend my next brithday, I wouldn't have believed them." He told her, softness filling his voice and sea-like eyes. "Thank you so much."

She put her hands on his neck, her thumbs brushing against his stubble. "You're so welcome."

"I love my other present, too" he continued and nodded at the blue tea cup from the CBI, on the table in the living room part of the vehicle. "I'm impressed, actually. When did you find the time to get it fixed? We spend most of our time together, and I don't remember you leaving long enough to do so."

"Well... I, er, I just had to find the box, really."

He quirked his eyebrows, confused. Lisbon bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at the bed, feeling her face going hot, once more.  
Jane had to fight a smile at how charming she looked, for he knew it would only have made her feel more embarrassed, and he stroked her arms from shoulder to elbow several times to drive her discomfort away.

She sighed at the curiosity in his eyes he couldn't conceal.

"I got it fixed a while ago... When I got your first letter from Venezuela."

His eyes widened in surprise and she smiled shyly at him, then cleared her throat.

"I honestly don't know why, but I went back to the bullpen after it got broken, and I gathered the pieces. I just put them in that wooden box in the living room, the one with the flower pattern you so easily guessed was from my mother? It was empty at the time, so I figured it wad as good a place as any. I liked to look at it sometimes after you left. I was so sure I'd never hear from you again..." She swallowed hard, fighting the tears.

Jane cupped her face in his hands, speechless for the second time that night, but this time because of the guilt he felt at what he'd done to her. He had had to go, of course, but not a single day had gone by that he hadn't missed her, especially knowing how he'd made a mess of her life back home.

She didn't pay attention to the changes on his face, lost in her memories. Her smile got bigger.

"And then one day I opened my mailbox, and here it was. Your first letter, where you let me know that you were still ok, that you'd found a good place to stay, that you missed me... God, _Patrick_."

He shivered, still not used to hearing her call him by his first name when they were alone, and she beamed at him, feeling odd saying it too. Especially knowing that most of the time, when his name was associated with any reference to the Almighty, it meant they weren't _talking_ much.

"It warmed my heart instantly, you have no idea how much. I got inside my house, read it again and again, I... Well, I cried a bit that night. I took what was left of your cup out of the box, replaced it with your letter, and letters when I got more, and got the thing glued back together the next morning at a china shop I knew in Cannon River. I didn't do it myself because I wanted to make sure it wouldn't be toxic for you to drink in it afterwards, or whatever. They assured me you'd be fine."

She looked at him warily and he simply put his lips to hers, at loss for words.

She sighed in relief that she didn't have to say more, and licked his lower lip to open his mouth. He obliged gladly and she lay back down on the bed, dragging him on top of her, her legs tightening around his waist as she infused more passion into the kiss.

He almost got carried away, too, but he felt there was more to the story than what she had said.

If she had had the tea cup that soon after he'd left, why hadn't he heard about it before? Neither he nor his feet were complaining, but why had she given him socks when she'd had _that_ much more meaningful gift waiting back at her place?  
And the way she was almost assaulting him felt a little... weird. Not that she wasn't capable of showing passion, but this felt different, especially since that had been a rather sweet conversation, not an angry, frightening talk like the one they'd had after the jail undercover case for example – that had led to an interesting discovery, and if he'd known how Angry Lisbon behaved in the bedroom, he'd have had a way better excuse to piss her off all those years.

"Teresa" he whispered against her lips, trying to pull back.

But for whatever reason she was holding back, her mind flooded with arousal chose to read the sound as a sign of pleasure, and he gasped when he felt her fingers between their naked bodies, fondling a very sensitive part of his anatomy. She chuckled and placed his hand on her breast, brushing his thumb on her nipple and moaning loudly, challenging him to stop.

_Oh, what the hell!  
_Patrick Jane was a man after all, and there was only so much a man could resist. Also in the short time they'd been having sex together, he'd never been able to resist that special way she moved her delicate fingertips on the end... Which she had noticed during their vacation time together before going back to the FBI as a couple, and was probably doing on purpose right now.

But why? Why would she think she had to distract him..?

Then he felt her now familiar, hot and wet opening against his crotch, and he groaned in response to the contact. He turned his brain off, promising his curious self to keep invastigating about this later, and let his body take control.

000

"You're going to kill me, woman" he said in her ear barely audibly, still panting, still joined with her.

She smiled, unable to talk, and simply stroked his back from his loins to his neck with both her hands until she could entangle them in his curls and bury his face in her hair.

_Uh, oh,_ Jane thought as he reassuringly dropped kisses on the side of her head. He knew this particular motion was her way of communicating she wanted him to stay on – and inside – her for a bit, and the only times she'd done that before had been very emotional ones.

The first time they'd had sex, when their feelings, just revealed, had almost been too much for both of them to handle when combined with their physical expression.

That night in Beirut after the fireworks had stopped, when they'd closed that horrible case that had shed painful light on his 'relations' with both Erika and Lorelei, and made her need to feel the strength of their newly deepened bond.

And she was doing it now, but he has absolutely no idea why. She was getting really good at hiding things from him...

But even if he was worried by her behaviour, he couldn't deny her the closeness. Firstly because he liked it himself, and secondly because it was still rare for her to be so open about her emotions.

After a while, Lisbon finally let go of his hair, and he rolled on his side to bring her close and compensate for the loss of intimate contact. She put her head beneath his, breathing his uniquely sweaty, Jane-y sent and reveling in its calming effect on her nerves. None of them talked for a while, until she sighed heavily and moved up to kiss him.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why?" she whispered after the light peck. He shot her a quizzical look and she smiled a shaky smile. "You're wondering why I haven't given it to you before today, aren't you?"

He laughed so hard she was a little shocked, but she mimicked him when he answered.

"Actually, I'm wondering how the hell it is that I'm the mentalist and _you_'re the one reading my mind."

He kissed her nose and let his right hand wander on her left shoulder, playing with some strands of her silky black hair. She knew how this was bugging him, and even though she didn't want to talk about it she had tried to start the conversation again. Saint Teresa, alright.

He went on more seriously.

"I'm really glad you didn't offer it to me before, because that really blew my mind tonight. But I admit I'm curious, yes." He felt her stiffen. "If you don't want to talk about it, it's ok, Teresa" he added softly, hoping she wouldn't shut him out now.

Someone heard his prayers apparently, and Lisbon threw her arms around his neck before looking into his eyes again to steel herself. He bit his tongue to stop himself from kissing her lips since she was about to speak, but really, Agent Lisbon's serious no-nonsense face on post-coital and disheveled Teresa's features was incredibly cute.

"I want to give it to you when you were in that lovely FBI detention suite. But frankly, I thought you needed socks more than a cup of tea."

They both chortled lightly, then she added in her lowest voice. "But mainly, you looked so different than before... Your whole new self screamed at me that you wanted to move on, that you hadn't succeeded yet but were trying. It was just a piece of china, I know, but still: I didn't want anything or anyone to hold you back, least of all me."  
Her voice got stronger then. "And believe me, you stubborn man, when I say that if anyone deserves to move on from the horrors of his past, it's you."

He felt his heartbeat increase at the determination in her voice, and he was more tempted than ever to believe that last sentence and completely let go of this old guilt he still carried around. He would feel it for the rest of his life, of course. But he was convinced in that moment, facing the pure honesty in his lover's gaze, that Lisbon would be more than able to temper it more every day. And that alone was reason enough for him to spend the rest of his life with her.

He thought they'd gotten through the hardest part, but he could see there was still something bugging her. After all, _he_ was the mentalist.

"I will, someday", he promised. And he meant it.

Her answering smile vanished when she saw the resoluteness building in the most gorgeous eyes of the planet. He rolled on his back and pretended to stare at the ceiling so she wouldn't feel too watched.

"So you didn't give it to me when we saw each other again, but you tried again later, didn't you? What happened then?"

She blushed for the hundredth time. Then she took a deep breath, settled so she would face him, her hands on his torso and her face near his, and he braced himself against whatever she would say. He'd been right, something bad was coming up.

"Remember that case, with the peanut-butter people?" He simply nodded. "You had decided to give everyone's secretly wanted gift, just for the fun of it. It reminded me so much of who you were before, back at the CBI, only this time it was only the _good_ memories that came to mind."

He winced a little, and she shot him an apologetic glance but didn't say she was sorry. They both knew he'd deserved that one for all the crap he'd pulled off over the years.

"Just so you know, I wasn't mad that you didn't get me anything. You had bought me a pony all those years ago, my childhood dream had already been accomplished!", she joked.

His eyes sparkled with joy that there was no disguised rancor in her tone, and he thought again about what a lucky jackass he was. He had had a gift for her. But he'd been so afraid of her accusing him of controlling her life again, that he hadn't been able to deliver that line he'd rehearsed so many times in his head.  
He'd expected her to be grumpy about the lack of gift. In his mind, he would then had gone to her place, and she'd have glared at him as she would have open the door. Then, he'd just planned to take his most charming voice, and tell her: _No need to feel sad that I didn't buy you a present, Lisbon. Yours isn't something one can get with money. Here, let me show you. _and then he'd have kissed the hell out of her.

Of course he'd never worked up enough courage to actually go through with it, and he now knew it wouldn't have worked anyway: in the end, it was not his charm that had driven her in his arms, but his sincerity and the admitting his feelings. Which he hadn't been near ready to do back then.

He focused on present-Lisbon again.

"Anyway, I was about to go home when I ran into Fisher, playing with that princess wand you'd gotten her. She was so pleased, she looked like a happy ittle girl on her seventh birthday. And then it hit me: you'd made everyone, including me, feel that great about a silly thing from their past, but no one had done that for you. I seriously considered giving you the cup at that moment, but I wanted to thank you for trying to get along better with the team before I went home to get it."

She looked suddenly sad, and he instantly sat up so he could hug her loosely while she kept talking.

"So I walked into the bullpen, and you were sitting on your couch.. Looking at her. Smiling."

He stroked her face and she realized a tear has escaped her. His eyes were glistenning too.

"Teresa" he whispered, feeling the need to defend himself. "I wasn't thinking of her like that, it was just.."

She interrupted him with the finger she put to his lips.

"Shh, I'm not done. I saw how sweet your smile was. And I know, now, that it didn't mean as much as it does when it's me you're smiling at."

He grinned at her confidence and he kissed the corner of her mouth to confirm her words, before she took another deep inspiration.

"The thing is, back then, and still now.. I never really knew what happened between the two of you."

Of course. He'd known where this was heading when he'd heard the name Fisher coming out of her mouth. He tried not to look too mad or upset about her bringing it up that night, when he was having such a great time before she'd done so. Showing bad emotions when she was being that honest about her fears and thoughts would come between them, and he did not want that.

He got up from the bed and looked down at her, his voice as soft as ever.

"Well, I guess we had to talk about this sooner or later, right? And I want us to. Just.. let me take a shower first, ok?"

She nodded, unconvinced. He sighed and forced her chin up to lock eyes with her.

"I'm not stalling, Teresa. It just feels wrong to talk about another woman when we're cuddling naked in bed."

He'd meant it as a joke, but he immediately saw the blood leaving her face and the flash of hurt shining in her eyes. So he went over what he'd just said in his head to find out where that reaction came from. It hit him like a Lisbon punch in the nose. _Another woman_.  
To him, it only meant another female human being, who he'd went on _one_ date with on _another continent_ – and mainly because she'd kinda looked like the woman he loved and missed.  
To her, it probably sounded like another Erika. Or... Lorelei.

_Oh, shit_, he thought, and just stood there, having no idea how to continue that conversation.

"Wouldn't have phrased it better", Lisbon answered, and he realized he'd actually swore out loud.

She saw how petrified he was, then she seemed to think for a moment before reaching a conclusion.

"Go take your shower, Patrick. And then let's forget about this. It's your birthday, and I don't want to ruin it. I want _you _to be happy" she paused. "That way you'll feel like you owe me the best time of my life when _my_ birthday comes up."

He felt like the weight of the world had been taken from his shoulders and he laughed, because he knew she actually meant that first part. And he wanted her to know about what had happened with Fisher, even if it was going to lead to a difficult conversation about his ring, that he'd taken off for an evening there and was still wearing on a daily basis while in a relationship with her...  
Though that talk, considering he was already thinking about what kind of an engagement ring he should get her and imagining them picking baby names together, was probably a good idea.  
It just didn't seem like a appropriate subject right that instant.

He shook his head, bend a little and kissed her forehead, caressing her cheek with his hand.

"Rain check, love?" he asked, his lips still on her skin.

"Alright, Patrick." she whispered back and winked when she felt him shudder at his Christian name.

He smiled and went to the ridiculously small bathroom anyway: he really needed a shower. Lisbon looked at the door for a while after he'd left, finding her jealousy level a lot lower than she'd expected.  
Well, Jane had proven his commitment to her – the guy had stopped an ariplane, for Christ's sake – and Fisher was no longer in the picture anyway. Besides as he'd implied in Beirut with that 1-million-dollar question about Mashburn, her closet wasn't devoid of skeletons either. And from their work together as a team, obviously nothing serious had happened between him and the other FBI Agent.

There was nothing to worry about, and for the first time in her life, especially when Jane was concerned, Teresa Lisbon's head and heart were in perfect sync.  
Theirs would be a bumpy road, and she didn't know how much either of them would really want to invest in the relationship on long term. But no matter what awaited them, she knew they would be able to face it.

She smiled at her naked self and got up to open the unlocked bathroom door, joining her psychic lover under the hot water.

He jumped when he felt her arms wrapping him from behind, surprised once again that night. And liking the feeling more and more every passing second.

END

_This wasn't supposed to be that long... Well. I know it's a bit cheesy, and OOC for both of them but  
__a) Season 7 is full of OOC-ness - in the best possible way - so I took some liberties  
__b) This was comfort writing, I just needed an out. Real life gets fucking scary when morrons start shooting tens of people and taking hostages right next to your house.  
__c) I wanted the Fisher issue to be at least kind of resolved in here since it's probably not happening in canon._

_Please donc forget to review ^^_


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